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Proposed driver-card ballot title buries the truth: Editorial

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With hundreds of cheering onlookers on the steps of the Oregon Capitol, Gov. John Kitzhaber signed a bill into law on May 1, 2013, that would make driver cards available to people who are in the country illegally.
(Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian)

Six of the House Rules Committee’s nine members voted Tuesday to hijack the normal process for writing ballot titles. The move is a barely disguised marketing effort for a law that would grant driving privileges to people in this country illegally. It won’t work, and driver-card supporters who value the Legislature’s credibility should oppose the change during an expected House vote Wednesday.

Senate Bill 833, approved during the 2013 session, would make short-term driver cards available to people who can’t prove their legal presence. The change is controversial because it would apply to illegal immigrants. But it’s a good idea, as we’ve argued on a number of occasions, because it would boost the use of insurance in a population that drives anyway.

Opponents quickly gathered enough signatures to place the law on the November ballot, triggering the contentious process, conducted by the Department of Justice, of producing a ballot title. A number of lawmakers don’t like the title the DOJ produced, however, so the House Rules Committee gutted an unrelated elections bill Tuesday and stuffed it with language that would replace the DOJ’s ballot title and related language with the Legislature’s own.

The vehicle for this end-run, House Bill 4054 would have made a number of changes to election law. One of them would bar people from taking money to gather signatures if they’d been fined for making “any false statement regarding the contents, meaning or effect of the petition.” Shading the truth about SB833, however, is exactly what the end-run ballot title does, though we doubt the six legislators who approved it appreciate the irony.

The certified ballot title, which has been appealed to the Supreme Court, is as follows: “Provides Oregon resident ‘driver card’ without requiring proof of legal presence in the United States.”

The end-run ballot title upon which the House may vote Wednesday is as follows: “Establishes limited purpose, duration driver card for individuals who prove Oregon residency, meet driving requirements.”

Some lawmakers have complained that the certified title is inaccurate, as it doesn’t reflect the safety-related rationale for approving SB833. But the most notable difference between the original title and the proposed replacement is the removal of “legal presence,” which is at the heart of both the driver-card law and the controversy surrounding it. And as for accuracy, the DOJ’s ballot title practically quotes SB833, which directs the Department of Transportation to “issue, renew or replace a driver card without requiring a person to provide proof of legal presence in the United States …”

Some voters might read the supposedly accurate replacement title and assume that driver-card applicants will be legal residents. SB833 does require applicants to prove that they’ve been in Oregon for at least a year, but this is necessary only because the law doesn’t require proof of legal presence in the United States. The Legislature’s proposed title omits this important context, encouraging uninformed voters to conclude that the measure would create a limited license available to people already eligible for driver's licenses. The end-run proposal even purges the language explaining the effects of “yes” and “no” votes of any mention of legal status, hiding the issue deep within the ballot summary.

The Legislature’s effort to write its own ballot title has nothing to do with accuracy. The effort, rather, betrays a belief that voters won’t approve SB833 if they know what it actually does. This fear may be well-founded, but that’s no reason for lawmakers to debase their institution in this fashion. If voters reject driver cards in November, the Legislature can, and should, revisit the issue in a couple of years.

The members of the House Rules Committee who voted in favor of the ballot-title amendment Tuesday are Phil Barnhart, D-Eugene, Chris Harker, D-Beaverton, Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, Val Hoyle, D-Eugene, Bob Jenson, R-Pendleton, and Barbara Smith Warner, D-Portland. The members who opposed it are Vicki Berger, R-Salem, Wally Hicks, R-Grants Pass, and Bill Kennemer, R-Oregon City.